The Corner House Girls on a Houseboat

“It would be a good while before I could see enough of her!” exclaimed Agnes. “I’m just in love with the craft, and I know we shall have a delightful summer on her. Only the trip will be over too soon, I’m afraid.”

“There is no necessity for haste,” the lawyer assured her. “The purchaser of the boat does not want her until fall, and you may linger as long as you like on the trip.”

“Good!” exclaimed Agnes.

A family council was held the next day at which Mr. Howbridge laid all the facts before Mrs. MacCall. At first the Scotch housekeeper would not listen to any proposal for the trip on the water. But when Ruth and Agnes had spoken of the delights of the boat, and when the housekeeper had personally inspected the Bluebird, she changed her mind.

“Though I never thought, in my old age, I’d come to bein’ a houseboat keeper,” she chuckled. “But ’tis all in the day’s work. I’ll gang with ye ma lassies. A canal boat is certainly more staid than an ice-boat, and I went alang with ye on that.”

“Hurray!” cried Agnes, unable to restrain her joy. “All aboard for Lake Macopic!”

The door opened and Aunt Sarah Maltby came in.

“I thought I heard some one calling,” she said anxiously.

“It was Agnes,” explained Ruth. “She’s so excited about the trip.”

“Fish? What fish? It isn’t Friday, is it?” asked the old lady, who was getting rather deaf.

“No, Auntie dear, I didn’t say fish– I said trip.” And Ruth spoke more loudly. “We are going to make a trip on a houseboat for our summer vacation. Would you like to come along?”

Aunt Sarah Maltby shook her head, as Tess pulled out a chair for her.

“I’m getting too old, my dear, to go traipsing off over the country in one of those flying machines.”

“It’s a houseboat – not a flying machine,” Agnes explained.

“Well, it’s about the same, I reckon,” returned the old lady. “No, I’ll stay at home and look after things at the Corner House. It’ll need somebody.”

“Yes, there’s no doubt of that,” Ruth said.

So it was arranged. Aunt Sarah Maltby would stay at home with Linda and Uncle Rufus, while Mrs. MacCall accompanied the Corner House girls on the houseboat.

There was much to be done before the trip could be undertaken, and many business details to arrange, for, as inheritors of the Stower estate, Ruth and her sisters received rents from a number of tenants, some of them in not very good circumstances.

“And we must see that they will want nothing while we are gone,” Ruth had said.

It was part of her self-imposed duties to play Lady Bountiful to some of the poorer persons who rented Uncle Peter Stower’s tenements.

“Well, as long as you don’t go to buying ‘dangly jet eawin’s’ for Olga Pederman it will be all right,” said Agnes, and they laughed at this remembrance of the girl who, when ill with diphtheria, had asked for these ornaments when Ruth called to see what she most wanted.

Eventually all the many details were arranged and taken care of. A mechanic had gone over the motor of the Bluebird and pronounced it in perfect running order, a fact which Neale verified for himself. He had made all his plans for going on the trip, and between that and eagerly waiting for any news of his missing father, his days were busy ones.

Mr. Howbridge had closely questioned Hank Dayton and had learned all that rover could tell, which was not much. But it seemed certain that Mr. O’Neil had started from Alaska for the States.

That he had not, even on his arrival, written to Neale, was probably due to the fact that the man did not know where his son was. His Uncle Bill Sorber, of course, knew Neale’s address, but the trouble was that the circus, which was not a very large affair, traveled about so, on no well-kept scheduled route, that Mr. Sorber was difficult to find. Letters had been addressed to him at several places where it was thought his show might be, but, so far, no answer had been received. He was asked to send a message to Mr. Howbridge as soon as any word came from Mr. O’Neil.

To Hank Dayton was left the task of picking out some mules to tow the houseboat through the stretch of canal. About a week, or perhaps longer, would be consumed on this trip, as there was no hurry.

Where the voyage is kept up for any length of time, two sets of mules or horses are used in towing canal boats. When one team is wearied it is put in the stable, which is on board the canal boat, and the other team is led out over a bridge, or gangplank, specially made for the purpose, on to the towpath.

But on the Bluebird there were no provisions for the animals, so it was planned to buy only one team of mules, drive the animals at a leisurely pace through the day and let them rest at night either in the open, along the canal towpath, or in some of the canal barns that would be come upon on the trip. At the end of the trip the animals would be sold. Mr. Howbridge had decided that this was the best plan to follow, though there was a towing company operating on the canal for such boat owners as did not possess their own animals.

As Mr. Howbridge had shrewdly guessed, the rough clothes of Hank Dayton held a fairly good man. He had been in poor luck, but he was not dissipated, and even Mrs. MacCall approved of him when he had been shaved, a shave being something he had lacked when Neale first saw him. Then, indeed, he had looked like a veritable tramp.

Gradually all that was to be done was accomplished, and the day came when Ruth and Agnes could say:

“To-morrow we start on our wonderful trip. Oh, I’m so happy!”

“What about your Civic Betterment Club?” asked Agnes of her sister.

“That will have to keep until I come back. Really no one wants to undertake any municipal reforms in the summer.”

“Oh, my! The political airs we put on!” laughed Agnes. “Well, I’m glad you are going to have a good time. You need it.”

“Yes, I think the change will be good for all of us,” murmured Ruth. “Tess and Dot seem delighted, and – ”

She stopped suddenly, for from the floor above came a cry of alarm followed by one of distress.

“What’s that?” gasped Ruth.

“Dot or Tess, I should say,” was the opinion of Agnes. “They must have started in to get some of their change already. Oh, gee!”

“Agnes!” Ruth took time to protest, for she very much objected to Agnes’ slang.

A moment later Dot came bursting into the room, crying:

“Oh, she’s in! She’s in! And it isn’t holding her up at all! Come on, quick. Both of you! Tess is in!”

CHAPTER VIII – THE ROBBERY

Dot Kenway stood in the middle of the room, dancing up and down, fluttering her hands and crying over and over again:

“She’s in! She’s in! And it isn’t holding her up! Oh, come quick!”

With a bound Ruth was at her sister’s side. She grasped Dot by the arm and held her still.

“Be quiet, honey, and tell me what the matter is,” Ruth demanded.

“Oh, she’s in! She’s in! And it isn’t holding her up!” Dot repeated.

“We’d better go and see what it is,” suggested Agnes. “Tess may merely have fallen out of bed.”

“Fallen out of bed – this time of day?” cried Ruth. “Impossible!”

But she let go of Dot and sped up the stairs whence floated down a series of startled cries. Agnes followed, while Dot called after them:

“Look in the bathroom! She’s in! It isn’t holding her up!”

To the bathroom rushed Ruth and Agnes, there to behold a sight which first made them gasp and then, instantly, started them into energetic action. For Tess was floundering about in the tub, full of water, with part of her bathing suit on and something bulky tied around her waist. She was clinging to the edge of the tub with both hands and trying to get to her feet. The tub was filled with water, and much of it was splashing over the side. Fortunately the floor of the bathroom was tiled.

“Oh, Tess! what are you doing?” cried Agnes, as she and Ruth pulled the small girl to her feet. Tess was gasping for breath, and had evidently swallowed some water.

“I – I – er – gug – I – was – ” That was all Tess could say for a while.

“You poor child!” exclaimed Ruth, reaching for a towel, to dry the dripping face. “Did you fall in? And what possessed you to put on your bathing suit?”

“And what have you got around your waist?” cried Agnes.

“That – that – that’s my – my life preserver!” exploded Tess. “If – if you’ll take the towel out of my moo-oo-oo-uth I’ll t-t-tell – you!” she stammered.

“Yes, do let’s let her tell, for mercy’s sake!” exclaimed Ruth. “Did your head go under, Tessie, dear?”

Tess nodded. It was easier than speaking, especially as she had not yet quite got her breath back.

The two older sisters dried her partly on the towel, the little girl raising her hands to keep her sisters from stuffing any more of the Turkish towel into her mouth, and then Dot came up the stairs.

“Is she – is she drowned?” was the awed whisper.

“No, but she might have been,” answered Ruth.

“What were you two doing? This is worse than the clothes basket elevator. What were you doing?”

“I was making a life preserver,” volunteered Tess, when she had been helped out of the bathtub and was standing on a big mat that absorbed the little rivulets of water streaming from her.

“A life preserver?” questioned Agnes.

“Yes,” Tess nodded. “I thought maybe I might fall off the houseboat and I didn’t see any life preservers on it, so I made one.”

“Out of the hot water bag,” put in Dot. “She tied it around her waist and she wanted me to tie one on me and make believe we fell into the bathtub. But I wouldn’t, and she got in, and it didn’t hold her up.”

“I should say it didn’t!” cried Agnes. “How could you expect a rubber bag full of water to hold you up? It couldn’t hold itself up.”

“It wasn’t full of water. I blew it up full of air just as Sammy Pinkney blows up his football,” said Tess. “And that floats in water, ’cause I saw it.”

“A hot water bag is different,” returned Ruth. “Yes, she has one on,” she added, as she and Agnes unwrapped from their sister some folds of cloth by which the partly inflated hot-water bag had been fastened around Tess’s waist.

“Don’t you ever do anything like that again!” scolded Dot, as Tess was sent to her room to dress while Linda came up to mop the floor.

“Well, what am I to do if I fall overboard off the Bluebird, I’m asking you?” called Tess, turning back, and holding her bath robe around her slim form. “There aren’t any life preservers on it!”

“We will provide some if they are needed,” said Ruth, laughing.

Just then Aunt Sarah Maltby came in and heard the story from Agnes.

“Just think, Dot and Tess, one of you might have been drowned,” she said severely. “If that bag had got around your feet, and the winding strips had tangled, your feet might have been held up and your head down. You might easily have been drowned in the bathtub.”

“Not me – I wouldn’t!” declared Dot.

“Why not?” Agnes wanted to know.

“’Cause I wouldn’t get in it! I told Tess maybe it was dangerous.”

“Well, it wouldn’t have been if I’d had more air in the bag,” called Tess from the half-open door of her room. “That was the matter.”

Mrs. MacCall shook her head when she heard what had happened.

“I ha me doots about them on the boat,” she said. “If they cut up such didoes here, what’ll they do then?”

“Oh, I think we shall manage somehow,” said Ruth with cheerful philosophy. “We’re used to mishaps.”

By dint of hard work the final preparations for the houseboat trip were made. The Bluebird was got in shape for the first part of the trip through the canal. Hank Dayton had been “slicked up,” and had his two sturdy mules in readiness. Neale had tested the motor again. A supply of food had been put on board, together with gasoline to use as soon as the transition from the canal to the river should have taken place.

Mr. Howbridge had arranged his plans so as to start with the girls, and Mrs. MacCall had her small trunk packed and in readiness. All that was possible had been done to get into communication with Neale’s father, and all that could be done was to await word from him, or from Mr. Sorber, who might be the first to hear, that the missing Klondike explorer had returned.

And at last the morning of the start arrived.

“Oh, it’s going to rain!” cried Tess as she arose early and ran to the window to look out.

“I don’t care. We can take umbrellas, and the boat has a roof on it,” said Dot. “My Alice-doll has been wet before.”

“But Almira doesn’t like rain, and her kittens might get cold,” objected Tess.

“We can’t take Almira!” said Ruth in a voice that Tess knew it was useless to appeal from. “The poor cat wouldn’t have a good time, Tessie, and she’d be in the way with her kittens.”

“She could catch mice,” suggested Tess, as a sort of last hope.

“There are mice on canal boats. I heard Hank Dayton say so,” put in Dot, seeking to strengthen Tess’s position.

“We’ll get a cat later if we need it,” compromised Ruth. “Don’t think of bringing Almira.”

“All right!” assented Dot, and then Tess called:

“There’s Sammy, and he’s got Billy Bumps. Let’s go down and tell them good-by!”

“Can’t Sammy come with us?” asked Dot, turning to Ruth.

“No indeed, nor the goat either! So don’t ask him and make him feel bad when I have to refuse him.”

“All right,” sighed Dot.

Then she and Tess finished dressing and went out to greet Sammy, who was paying one of his early morning calls.

“Want me to do any errands for you, Ruth?” he politely asked when he had refused an invitation to breakfast, saying he had already eaten.

“No, thank you, Sammy,” was the answer.

“I could go quick – hitch Billy to the wagon and get anything you wanted from the village,” he went on.

Ruth shook her head, and then had to hurry away to see about one of the many last-minute details.

“Well, good-by, then,” said Sammy to the other sisters, as he prepared to depart. “I wish I was going! We could take Billy Bumps.”

“But if they wouldn’t let me take a cat on the boat I don’t suppose they’d want a goat,” put in Tess.

“I don’t guess so,” said Sammy, more meekly than he usually spoke. “Well, good-by!” And down the street he went, taking Billy Bumps, who belonged to Tess and Dot, with him.

“It does look like rain,” said Agnes, when it was almost time for Mr. Howbridge to call for them in his machine to take them and their baggage to the houseboat.

“It may hold off until we get on board,” said Ruth. She gave a sudden start. “Oh, Agnes! Our jewelry! We forgot to take it to the bank!”

“That’s so! I knew we’d forget something! Well, haven’t we time to run down with it now before Mr. Howbridge comes?”

Ruth looked at her wrist watch.

“Just about,” was her decision. “Come on. You and I can take the package down and then hurry back.”

“You’d best take an umbrella, ma dearies!” cautioned Mrs. MacCall. “’Tis showery goin’ to be this day!”

“We’ll take one,” assented Ruth.

She and Agnes had planned to leave their jewelry and some other articles of value in their safe deposit box, but had forgotten it until now.

The two older girls sallied forth with a large umbrella, which Agnes carried, while Ruth had the package of jewelry.

They were half way to the bank, no great distance from home, when suddenly a downpour began with the usual quickness of a summer shower.

“Hurry! Raise the umbrella!” cried Ruth. “I’m getting drenched!”

“Isn’t it terrible!” gasped Agnes.

She and her sister stepped into the shelter of the nearest doorway for a moment. Something was wrong with the catch of the umbrella. Ruth was just going to help her sister raise it when suddenly two rough-looking men rushed from the hall back of the doorway in which the girls had taken shelter.

One of the men rudely brushed past Ruth, and, as he did so, he made a grab for the packet of jewelry, snatching it from her.

“Oh!” screamed the girl. “Stop! Oh! Oh, Agnes!”

The other man turned and pushed Agnes back as she leaned forward to help Ruth.

Then, as the rain came down harder than ever, the men sped up the street, leaving the two horror-stricken girls breathless in the doorway.

CHAPTER IX – ALL ABOARD

For a moment after the robbery neither Ruth nor Agnes felt capable of saying anything or doing anything. Ruth, it is true, had cried out as the burly ruffian had snatched the packet of jewelry from her, and then fear seemed to paralyze her. But this was only for a moment. In few seconds both she and Agnes became their energetic selves, as befitted the characters of Corner House girls.

“Oh, Agnes! did you see? He has the jewelry!” cried Ruth.

“Yes, I saw! He pushed me back or I’d have grabbed it away again! We must take after them!”

The girls started to leave, having managed to get the umbrella up, but at that instant there came such a fierce blast of wind and such a blinding downpour of rain that they were fairly forced back into the doorway.

And, more than this, their umbrella was turned inside out and sent flapping in their faces by the erratic wind, so that they could not see what they were doing.

“This is awful!” exclaimed Agnes, and she was near to crying.

“We must call for help,” said Ruth, but they would have needed to shout very loud indeed to be heard above the racket made by the wind and rain. A momentary glimpse up and down the street, when a view of it could be had amid the sheets of rain, showed no one in sight.

“What shall we do?” cried Ruth, vainly trying to get the umbrella to its proper shape.

At that moment the door behind them opened. The girls turned, fearing a further attack, but they saw Myra Stetson, whose father kept a grocery, and it was in the doorway adjoining the store that the Corner House girls had taken refuge.

“What is the matter?” asked Myra, when she saw who it was. “I heard the door blow open and I came down to shut it.”

The Stetson family lived up over the grocery, where there were two flats.

“What has happened?” went on the grocer’s daughter. She was rather more friendly with Agnes than with Ruth, but knew both sisters, and, indeed, Ruth was planning to have Myra on one of the Civic Betterment committees. There had been some little differences of opinion between Myra and Agnes, but these had been smoothed out and the girls were now good friends.

“We’ve been robbed! At least Ruth has!” exclaimed Agnes. “A ruffian took our jewelry box!”

“You don’t mean it!” cried Myra.

“I only wish I didn’t,” said Ruth brokenly. “Oh, my lovely rings!”

“And my pins!” added Agnes.

“Tell me about it,” begged Myra, and, rather breathlessly, the Corner House girls told the story of the assault of the two burly men in the doorway.

“They ran off down the street with the box of jewelry we were taking to the bank,” explained Ruth.

“Then you’d better tell the police at once,” advised Myra. “Come on up into our flat and you can telephone from there. Mr. Buckley is a special officer and he has a telephone. Father will send for him. Do come up!”

“Yes, I think we had better,” agreed Ruth. “And we must notify Mr. Howbridge. That is, if he hasn’t left his office.”

“If he has we can get him at our house,” said Agnes. “We were just going to start on a houseboat trip when this terrible thing happened,” she explained to Myra.

“Isn’t it too bad!” said the grocer’s daughter. “But do come upstairs. Did you say the man came out of our hallway?”

“Yes,” answered Ruth. “We stepped into the doorway to be out of the rain for a moment and to raise the umbrella, the catch of which had been caught in some way, when they both rushed past us, one of them grabbing the box from under my arm.”

“And one gave me a shove,” added Agnes.

“That’s the most amazing thing I ever heard of!” declared Myra. “Those men must have been hiding in there waiting for you.”

“But how did they know we were coming?” asked Ruth. “We didn’t think of going to the bank with the jewelry ourselves until a few minutes ago. Those men couldn’t have known about it.”

“Then it’s very strange,” said Myra. “I must tell father about it. There may be more of them hiding upstairs.”

“Do you mean in your house?” asked Agnes, for they were now ascending the stairs, the refractory umbrella having at last been subdued and turned right side out.

“I mean in the vacant flat above ours,” went on Myra. “It’s to let, you know, and two men were in to look at it yesterday. They said they were from the Klondike.”

“From the Klondike!” exclaimed Ruth, and she and Agnes exchanged significant glances.

“Yes. That’s in Alaska where they dig gold, you know,” explained Myra. “I didn’t see the men. Father said they came to look at the flat, and one of them remarked they had just come back from the gold regions. They didn’t rent it though, as far as I know.”

“Isn’t that strange?” said Agnes slowly.

“Very,” agreed Ruth, and, by a look, she warned her sister not to say any more just then.

They were ushered into the Stetson living apartment over the store and Mr. and Mrs. Stetson were soon listening to the story.

“The idea of any men daring to use our hallway to commit a robbery!” cried Mrs. Stetson. “Father, you’d better see if any more of the villains are hiding. I’m sure I’ll not sleep a wink this night.”

“I’ll take a look,” said the grocer. “That hall door often blows open, though. The lock needs fixing. It would be easy for any one to slip into the lower hall from the street and wait there.”

“That’s what they probably did,” said Agnes. “And it was just by accident that we went up to the doorway to raise the umbrella. The men must have seen us, and, though they couldn’t have known what was in the box, they took it anyhow. Oh, it’s too bad! Our trip is spoiled now!” and she was on the verge of tears.

“Don’t worry, my dear,” advised Mrs. Stetson. “We’ll get the police after them. Father, you must telephone at once. And you must have a look in those vacant rooms upstairs.”

“I will,” promised the grocer, and then began a period of activity. A clerk and a porter from the grocery downstairs made a careful examination of the upper premises, but, of course, discovered no more thieves. And, naturally, there were no traces of the men who had robbed Ruth and Agnes.

The telephone soon put the police authorities of Milton in possession of the facts, and Special Officer Buckley, was soon “on the job,” as he expressed it. He came, a burly figure in rubber boots and a glistening rubber coat, to the Stetson apartment, there to hear the story first-hand from Ruth and Agnes. With him also came Jimmy Dale, a reporter from the Milton Morning Post.

Jimmy had been at the police headquarters when word of the robbery was telephoned in, and he, too, “got on the job.”

All the description Ruth and Agnes could give of the men was that they were rough and burly and not very well dressed. But it had all taken place so quickly and in such obscurity amid the mist of the rain that it was difficult for either girl to be accurate.

Then as much as was possible was done. Several other special officers were notified of the occurrence, and the regular police force of Milton, no very large aggregation, was instructed to “pick up” any suspicious characters about town.

Mr. Stetson confirmed the statement made by Myra that two men who claimed to have recently returned from the Klondike had been to look at the vacant flat the day before. In appearance they were rather rough, the grocer said, though he would not call them tramps by any means.

There might be a possible connection between the two, it was agreed. Mr. Howbridge was notified by telephone, and called in his automobile for the two girls, who, after some tea, felt a little more composed.

“But, oh my lovely jewelry!” exclaimed Agnes. “It’s gone!”

“And mine,” added Ruth. “There were some things of Dot’s and Tessie’s in the box, too, and mother’s wedding ring,” and Ruth sighed.

“The police may recover it,” said the lawyer. “I am glad neither of you was harmed,” and his gaze rested anxiously on his wards.

“No, they barely touched me,” said the older girl. “One of them just grabbed the box and ran.”

“The other one gave me a shove,” declared Agnes. “If I had known what he was up to he wouldn’t have got away so easily. I haven’t been playing basket ball for nothing!” she boasted.